Recycled brake pad.

My Mother bought a car (1999 GF 626 Mazda) which needs a bit of work before putting it on the road, this was a rear brake pad, which in a huge surprise to me had the friction material fall off when I inspected the rear bits, through neglect the rear calipers had stopped functioning some time ago anyway, very questionable if any work is warranted but the car still looks pretty good so I'll proceed.

It now graces the end of my pushbike's prop stand so hopefully I can now safely park it on soft ground without it digging in and taking a tumble. Horrible weld but I could barely see what I was doing and had to take a photo just to check the result, such is the curse of cataracts, which now happily are on the waiting list for an operation.

Of course the Jimby bad luck curse had to continue with the headband of my cheap welding mask breaking, but I just hand held the mask to do the job, and tried a plastic weld job on it afterwards, no doubt it'll break again but I'm so used to breakages it barely raises a D'OH! any more.

A wretched Xmas eve.

We had an awful Xmas eve, Cyclone Owen in its now zombie form gave us a third visit and dumped a little bit of rain, only 100 mm or so, but the little bit of breeze it had left slammed our back door and broke its window glass, D'OH! our internet also dropped out a few times during the day. Then as I was settled into watching the Big Bash cricket and revisiting the old classic game Doom last night we found our bathroom was a flood zone!

The fairly new mixer in our bathroom (unlike in USA our lavatory is a separate room) has already failed, naturally at the most inopportune time imaginable. Because of our punitive rules about life in general combined with eye watering fines I shall only write that finding an available and cheaply priced plumber on the night before Xmas was no problem.

It's just got to get batter after this.

Happy Birthday Dad.

Father Fred is home and looking pretty healthy now, today is his 89th birthday and I was lucky enough to score one of his beers. He's walking about reasonably well now which is quite a relief, also the prescription drug fueled fog in his head seems abated, yippee.

After a wet night.

Cyclone Owen weakened into a rain depression as it became closer to Ingham and decided to then dump the moisture it was holding upon us last night, incredibly it was decent enough not to drop rain upon the Herbert river headwaters so this pondage outside our place has a place to drain which I expect to happen shortly after things clear up.

I think this is our wettest day in the 15 years I've been here, 327 mm since 09:00 yesterday. Keen viewers may notice the weather station's clock seems most awry but offsetting the time zone into a +1 means it conforms to the lazy Aussie standard of starting the day at 9 in the morning. The accuracy of this unit is also very good, I trust it and its fellow units about Ingham (plenty on the Weather Underground) more than the official reading. Stations to the SE of us received a lot more rain than our 327 mm too.

Here we go again.

Cyclone Owen wore itself out a week ago and gave us plenty of rain but it regathered puff after a spell in the gulf and now we're going to cop another dose of misery, if you see people on the news sitting upon their roof that'll be us, but I'm a hoping we don't cop yet another flood.
This could also affect my journey to Townsville on Tuesday for an eye inspection.

This is quite warm for us.

We don't often get into the 40s here, although happily the humidity is low, it was more uncomfortable the other day when we had 60% humidity yet only 37 degrees.
Observers may note the clock seems very awry, the unit is set to a plus 1 time zone so as it resets at 09:00 daily to fit in with the Australian standard for records.
This units posts continuously to the Weather Underground website, oddly right now they've hidden it but it's IINGHAM5

Smiling eye.

I got some good news today, albeit in a rather irksome manner since when I message somebody online I expect a reply to be online rather than via what to be is a very stress inducing phone call, it seems my strike action with the cardiac section of the hospital until my eyes are done has had the effect of raising my priority with the eye section. I now have an appointment on the 18th December, which will be an absolute pain but at least starts the ball rolling for the cataract operation I need rather badly.
I had to smile when she mentioned dilating the pupil so they could focus on the retina, just wasting their time they are, they won't get a focus now on my left eye, nor could they 8 months ago when my sight was better.
Anyway it'll be nice to be able to see details again, or if it fails and my eyes fall out I won't be much worse off.

Fred's home again.

Happily for all the hospital released him this morning and I whizzed him away in Daisy. He enjoys hospital stays as much as I do, can't get out quick enough.

I can't seem to stay away from hospitals now.

At least I'm only a visitor this time, father Fred took a tumble today and was ambulanced away to hospital. His legs haven't worked decently for a while and I suppose it came to a head today, he's strong and everything else is working pretty well but when you're 88 y/o weaknesses will bubble to the surface. Hopefully things will be set in motion now for some treatment to see if things can improve a bit.

My sight with cataracts.

This is how most folk would see this screen.

This is about how my right eye sees things now.

My left eye is fairly useless now yet manages to help my right eye out, I can't read the computer screen with it but it does add to my sight.
What's a concern is the cataracts snuck up on me over a long time and I was very late to realise they were the reason my eyes were being naughty. My right eye which has been reasonable I think is now trying to play catch-up to its partner and has lost some more vision recently, meanwhile I patiently wait for my name to bubble to the head of the hospital waiting list, hopefully within a couple of years but I may need to buy a white cane beforehand.

Soldered.

I didn't much fancy the idea of using the crimp type cable end ferrules that appear universal on pushbike brake cables these days, so I soldered the end instead to hopefully stop fraying.
The old cables were a bit short to enable me to raise the handlebars a little bit so I fitted new cables. At my age and health a racing crouch is a fearsome prospect.
Solder is a word that due to the quirks of regional dialects American's are unable to pronounce, it comes across as a brand of wonder soap.

It looked familiar.

This street scene from the road film Charlie & Boots (2009) looked familiar so with a tiny bit of street googling it showed it was only shot 200 metres up the road from our place.
The car is a HJ Holden, common here years ago but would be pretty well unknown in much of the world.

Six years now since Grace left us.

I said hello and gave her plague a wipe over. Bending over is a very awkward thing for me to do these days as my insides pop around with a squidgy feeling when I overdo it, hence the fancy style of my bending here.

Then left a flower from our yard the same as I placed upon her coffin.

Grace shares this day with the great entertainer Al Jolson, whose last words I can really relate to "Oh, God, this is it! I'm going" something that three months ago I could have said, except I was cranky at the doctors in the hospital and didn't want to tell them anything, that machine I was plugged into dobbed me in though and got the nurses (whom I had no issue with) to jump on my chest enough to leave a painful reminder of the event. 

It's just a flower.

I rode the pushbike to see the doctor today, a visit that should never have happened but since I almost always carry a camera (in this case my old budget favourite Olympus SZ-16 that must be nearly  worn out from use and incidents) and I spotted a cute lonely flower beside a new cement footpath that was begging to be photographed.

A pity for me is I can't see well enough now to see what I'm doing so I have to guess a fair bit about what I'm doing. Olympus are struggling along nowadays but they sure do colours nicely.
My health improves after winding down for many years before that unexpected operation in July, hopefully I'll be able to share more simple little things like this.

A win this time.

One of Olivia's friends computer wouldn't boot up, something that was very puzzling but since it booted from another power supply, that shortlisted things to inspect before changing it.
This capacitor in the poser supply looked slightly suspect so I whipped it out and put a slightly different one from my stock at home, happily the result was booting and running stably.
This one was a 330µF 16V, I put in a 470μF 35V, close enough for Jimby until it explodes.
How I saw the bulge is hard to explain given my eyes couldn't read its value and I had to take a series of photos so I could tell what the numbers on it were.

And back to boring black.

That was certainly a short trial, as expected more effort was required to roll along but with my lack of leg power that extra effort was a tipping point.
Those solid tyres might be very useful for someone training for the le tour but this frail old man needs another layer of fitness first.

Pretty green tyres.

Curiosity beat me yet again and I bought a set of solid tyres for my pretty pushbike. I haven't tested them yet but expect them to be less efficient than pneumatic ones, that however is no drama since I'm using pushbikes these days to gain a token level of fitness.
Not being concerned about a puncture nor monitoring pressure should be an added bonus too but the big thing to like is the pretty colour.
Mounting them was simple enough after you realise than one end of the tyre must be fixed (tied) to the rim. 

A D'OH! moment.

We have Narelle's car at our place until her return, and I noticed her remote lock wasn't operating properly so I found a switch that looked close enough, then my D'OH! moment came when I noticed I actually had the correct switches on hand, so I soldered a couple in.

Now after taking the photo I see that perhaps I should have done the other two too, my eyes can't see well enough to notice that live now, that also is my excuse for ordinary soldering work.

I still have dimples.

Dimples are no worries now but in my developing years I found them jolly embarrassing and never smiled in any of the rare shots I was in, which was limited to football and school shots anyway, all in glorious B&W too because the photographers could get away with their poverty pack approach and still charge top shelf prices.
This is a lovely group piccie of Jimby, Olivia, Stephanie, Katie, and Narelle while they were waiting for the train today.

The legend and the wannabe.

I've been wearing Frank Sinatra type hats for a while now as tribute to the great, so when this popped up on screen at the seniors coffee club this morning I had to plonk my hat upon my head and get Olivia to snap a piccie.
He was that good he even performed with Fred Astaire, a double class act.

Narelle and Katie will like this.

Their Stephanie (middle front) won something and had her photo in the local paper.

An exciting time for Olivia.

Olivia flew away for a couple of days to do an onerous chore but she got plenty of cheer by posing with the Cowboys' co-captains before her flight away.

On her return journey her mood turned to rapture when Cowboys' two JTs came onboard. A very excited wife greeted Jimby when she returned.

A good arm at last.

My left arm is pretty good now thanks to antibiotics, what's even nicer to report is my right arm is far less painful than it was previously after getting infected after copping 4 very painful failed canula attempts in Townsville Hospital, pity their policy wouldn't permit them to use the good canula that Ingham Hospital had installed prior to them giving me a lesson in pain.

Five weeks later and not healed.

I think the lower part of my arm may be a little infected, tomorrow I'll ride my pushbike (because I'm not allowed to drive yet) up to the hospital and ask if there's any warranty on the operation.

The zipper on my chest is fine though.

20 days later.

The healing continues, I've had a bit of trouble with wrist end of my arm but I stopped Olivia using the Betadine on it the other day and instead just sprayed it with some Glen20 we had in the house and that seems to have sorted it out pretty well. Floor disinfectant works a treat and is extra cheap but Olivia won't allow me to use that.
The bruise is from pathology draining more blood from me on Friday, I bruise like an old woman these days but it was doubly painful as she struck a dry vein on my right arm so had to dig again into my left one, where happily she struck a gusher.

Hair is reappearing on my chest but I'm not a gorilla (is that fur?)so the zipper shall remain in view.

Oh dear I have man boobs.

A most unpretty sight but the wounds would have rendered them unnoticed if I hadn't mentioned them.

A 20 day heart plumbing adventure.

I had gone to the doctor simply to get the result of a test and in a slip of the tongue mentioned the extremely cold winter we've had brought my cold weather angina back. it seems in another loss of freedom they have to detain and test any complaints of chest pain. The Ingham hospital reckoned I'd h a heart attack recently and despite my protests Olivia insisted I get lugged away to Townsville to receive whatever treatment needed. Here the ambos are either tickling or preparing me for the ride.

I protested my health was fine but under much duress they eventually beat me down to agreeing to an angiogram, then oddly I felt a bit weaker and sat down, and thanks to the wires on me was able to watch the heart ticker number go down down down along with my eyesight, I just caught a glimpse of a flashing light as I slumped in a rather dead position in the chair, the next thing I saw the face of an angel (nurse Sarah) talking to me out of a cloud of grey, meanwhile my chest hurt from the other nurse Sarah jumping on my chest with stiletto heels. I had picked a great place to keel over and my resistance to procedures vapourised. I was incredibly calm from then on and this piccie was from the next day showing off my lifesaving machine.

 Angiogram done and on my wrist is a fantastic bit of pressure equipment to stop blood pouring out.
Result was no stent possible, which is likely a win but 4-5 blockages needed bypassing.

So I was now in wait mode but I was really cheered up by a visit by young Stephanie and family.

Olivia would love these mirrors at home, the pity for me was with my eyesight (which is worse since the op.) I couldn't see well enough for them to help with shaving.

This Tork lavatory paper they have is the best I've ever used, yet oddly many moan about it.

They supply a huffer to test and work your lungs, it worked fairly well before the operation but had become faulty after it with it barely rising, however it seems to be working a bit better now, a temporary fault possibly even related to my health.

The TV at the hospital is a technical nightmare and also $11 per night to watch a butchered picture is only stress inducing, but a blessing is that the hospital offers free wifi and I was able to get a very limited contact with the world via it, an absolute blessing and I must add that some of my limitations are likely linked to my budget tablet that I had merely used to play Sudoku on previously.

Close to operation time now and the few hairs I had on my body were clipped. In order to avoid more pain I even shaved off the few hairs that the hospital nurse had missed.

I think I'm waving to Olivia as they cart me away, an oxygen mask is used for everybody.

Olivia shot this as I was coming to the next morning, I was too drugged up to make any sense at this point.

Olivia spent too many hours in this waiting room and hadn't even noticed the cellphone charger. She was a nervous wreck waiting for doctors to arrive with sombre news but it wasn't TV and I'm still alive to annoy them after what she claims was a 6 hour operation.

Finally unwired the day before leaving and I can show off my new zipper thanks to this clear bandage. The lower bandage covers three drainage holes they had tubes in before removing them, the action of doing that was a squidgy feeling.
I also got lucky with bypass piping, they found three in my breast, Olivia now says I won't be able to make milk for any baby I might have, and they must have hooked a massive pipe out of my arm which I heard did a bit of double duty doing two of the blockages by backflow or something.
Anyway all done and back at home now, albeit in a reduced capacity for a while, although to be fair my capacity has been much reduced for some time anyway.

Photography is difficult when your eyesight is hopeless.

I tested my walking on a trip to my parent's place, dunno whether it was a pass or fail, I was stronger than when I walked a week ago but still not up to scratch and can't really consider it a viable means of getting about. Balance issues still affect me, something's amiss.
I heard a helicopter and had just enough time to pull my camera out and wind up a bit of zoom, then point in what I thought was the right direction and hope for the best, happily I managed a result, maybe not a great one but I was shooting blind(ish). Must be whatever the Chinooks have evolved into as I thought they had pensioned Chinooks off years ago.

 Then I saw Skippy jump across the path and road in front of my so did the same routine, clever Skippy though had hidden himself (what am I saying? clever Skippies are invariably female) behind the guard rail, you'll see part of him in the right side of the shot. Come to think of it he must have been male as rather than take the easy approach of hopping around the armco it snuck under it.
Why post a crap piccie like this? it was a nice day so thus a pretty scene, and kangaroos are not that common in other countries.